Jennifer Smith was halfway through high school when she visited California with her parents and decided to stay. A decade later, she conceived and launched C Magazine, a must-read publication that highlights the people and places that make California the Golden State. Then came the 2025 wildfires, destroying her Malibu home and those of many friends in her C community. Did that dim the lights on the California Dream? Not for Smith.

“After a couple of tears, I was ready to rebuild,” she tells Lyn Winter, host of Rodeo Drive The Podcast, adding, “when you wake up every morning with that ocean outside as your backyard, and you hear the waves crashing, and at night you see the glistening moon over the waves and the sea, it's just so magical that you'll just do anything to keep having it.”

Now Smith celebrates 20 years of C Magazine with the publication of a book of stories drawn from past articles: California: Dream State: Stylish Living from Canyon to Coast (Rizzoli, Fall 2025).

Winter spoke with Smith about the deep allure and mythology of the West Coast, the evolution of fashion, art and culture over the last two decades, and about making a successful print magazine in the digital age. For Smith, it started with landing her first cover, featuring model Carolyn Murphy, thanks to a chance meeting over at a sushi counter in Malibu.

“We just started talking, and I said, ‘I'm launching a magazine about California. Would you ever consider being on the cover?’ And she said, ‘of course I would.’ And then we had Kirsty Hume as our second cover, because she knew Carolyn did it. And then all of a sudden, I got Cindy Crawford, and then I got Claire Danes, and then it just, from there we kept going and going.”

Smith explains that the key to success in publishing today is being more than a magazine. The C-team curates events together with advertising partners, many on Rodeo Drive, like the memorable dinner for 25 at Harry Winston, at which guests on the street of dreams were each presented with a silver domed dessert, recalls Smith.

“And inside the silver dome was actually a piece of jewelry for each of the guests. So everyone was just expecting to see some piece of cake, and there was some million dollar bauble, and they all got to wear it. So they were dripping in jewels and eating their dessert, and we had the best time.”

As much as she loves the city, Smith feels the call to the wild. The book contains sumptuous photos of lives lived well in the canyons, the coast, mountains and desert. The only challenge was picking from more than 200 issues of the magazine. She and her team looked for timeless stories “that stood out to us and that we would want to celebrate and see again and again.”

Stories that made the cut include a feature on Kelly Lynch and Mitch Glaser in their weekend home “that was just so cool with this mountain, rocky, jagged, beautiful;” and the hat maker Nick Fouquet, in his “amazing house in Topanga that is very cool and architectural.”

The current issue of C Magazine, compiled just after the recent fires, was designed as a love letter to California. ”I'm forever, endlessly in love with it,” she concludes.

Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.

Season 5 Credits:

Executive Producer and Host: Lyn Winter

On behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica Rose

Scriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances Anderton

Editor and Videographer: Hans Fjellestad

Theme music by Brian Banks

Production Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso

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